Haftarah for Terumah

I Kings 5:26-6:13

Hiram, king of Tyre (modern day Lebanon), had been a friend to David and he sent servants with greetings and an offer of assistance. Solomon replied that, while David was not permitted to build the Temple, he was about to do so and could use Hiram's help. According to the arrangement made between the two kings, Hiram's men would cut down cedars in Lebanon and Solomon would pay their wages. The logs would be made into rafts and sailed as far as possible, then disassembled and carried over land.

Solomon drafted 30,000 men in a three-month rotation; 10,000 would work for a month in Lebanon, then go home for two months. There were 70,000 porters, who would carry stones from the mountains and 80,000 masons who chiseled the stones into shape before shipping them. (No iron tools could be used on-site, but they could be used off-site.) In this way, the builders of Solomon and the builders of Hiram prepared the wood and stone for the Temple.

Chapter 6

480 years after the Jews left Egypt, the Temple was begun; this was in Solomon's fourth year as king, in the month of Iyar. (The Navi calls it "Ziv" because the names by which we call the Hebrew months were not adopted until later.) The Temple was twice the length and breadth of the Tabernacle (Mishkan). It was 60 cubits long and twenty cubits wide. (A cubit is somewhere between 18" and two feet.) The Temple was three times the height of the Tabernacle: 30 cubits. The Ulam (Hall) in front of the Temple proper was 20 cubits long by ten cubits wide. The windows of the Temple narrowed from the outside toward the inside, to say that outside light was not required.

There was a storage space in the walls that ran around the sides and back of the Temple, broken into individual rooms. There were three storeys of these storage rooms, each wider than the one below, therefore extending deeper into the walls for additional support from the lower levels. The storage annex was entered from the south and a winding staircase would take one to the second and third storeys. The storage area was lined with cedar and the ceiling of the Temple was decorative wood over cedar planks.

G-d spoke to Solomon through a prophet. (Radak quotes the Seder Olam that it was the prophet Achiyah, who we will "officially" meet in chapter 11.) He said that so long as Solomon remained true to Him, He would dwell among the Jewish people.

Excerpted from The OU's Nach Yomi